2012 Two Pounds

Three different £2 coins were issued in 2012. Two commemorative coins; one to mark the Olympic handover ceremony from London 2012 to Rio in 2016 and another to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens. The standard coin with the ages of man reverse was also issued.

The obverse has the portrait of the Queen by Ian Rank-Broadley. The reverse omits both the denomination ‘TWO POUNDS’ and the date, so these has been incorporated into the obverse and are shown at the bottom.

The reverse by Jonathan Olliffe shows a baton being handed over with the Union flag, the flag of Brazil and a running track below and the London 2012 logo above. The very successful London 2012 Olympics finished with the ceremony to mark the handover to Rio de Janeiro for 2016. The performers at the ceremony had this to say:

The obverse has the portrait of the Queen by Ian Rank-Broadley. The reverse omits both the denomination ‘TWO POUNDS’ and the date, so these has been incorporated into the obverse and are shown at the bottom.

The reverse is by Matthew Dent and shows the profile of Charles Dickens, made up of the titles of his works. Charles John Huffam Dickens is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. In his epic novels he created fictional characters that are known the world over and remain hugely popular to this day:

The obverse portrait of the Queen by Ian Rank-Broadley has been used on all UK coinage from 1998 to 2015 and is the fourth portrait of the Queen used on coinage. At the time of writing, this portrait is due to be replaced by a new one, to be unveiled in 2015.

The reverse design shows technological ages of man. Represented are the Iron Age, the Industrial Revolution, the Electronic Age and the Internet Age. The edge quote ‘STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS’ is from a letter by Sir Isaac Newton from 1676 in which he wrote: ‘If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’, which may have been a modest nod to other scientists, but some say that it may have been poking fun at the stature of the recipient of the letter, Robert Hooke. The expression ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’ pre-dates Newton by many centuries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants

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